March Madness, Part 2: Electric Boogaloo

11:54 – After a short 11 ½ hour break, we’re back in action here on the blog.

Not only am I pumped up for another full day of tournament action, but I got a bonus 15 minutes ago when I turned to CBS. Since I haven’t been home sick from school in over a decade, it’s been forever since I’ve watched more than a few seconds of The Price Is Right.

Hands down, the most entertaining show not named The Simpsons to ever go on the air. Even skinny Drew Carey hasn’t been able to ruin the show. It’s my lifelong dream to get on contestants row, then make one of the other players want to murder me as I bid one dollar more than him every single time.

Anyways, looking ahead to the action, I’m psyched that Duke has the first game. As the only team other than Georgia Southern that I root for in college basketball, I’m hoping that the Blue Devils can get past that little first round hiccup from last season that I’m probably never going to mention again. If they lose to another 15 seed, we might have to end this live blog early.

12:17 – Not having TruTV is finally starting to pay off. Ole Miss is playing on that channel, which means that I get to miss out on watching the insufferable Marshall Henderson. He has easily run away with the 2013 “most punchable person in the nation” award. I don’t even like half of the teams that Ole Miss beats, but I find myself siding with them when Henderson goes into his antics.

I think yesterday’s article on deadspin.com put it perfectly. There are a lot of star players who accept and embrace the bad guy persona as they take the heat from rival fans. Not Marshall Henderson. That guy was a total antagonistic asshole waaaaayy before anyone realized that he was good at basketball.

12:24 – Watching 16 tournament games play out in one day is a lot like watching a presidential election as the states are being called for one candidate or the other.

You’ve got buzzer-beaters that are too close to call. You’ve also got those states where there is a strong lean to one side throughout the day, but thanks to an athletic or sharp-shooting low seed (or one of those pesky third party candidates), we end up waiting a little longer before making the call.

Then, there are those states where one guy is named the winner with one percent of precincts reporting. That’s a game like Syracuse-Montana last night, and how the Duke-Albany game looks right now. When one team comes out and drills three contested jumpers, pulls down five of the first six rebounds, then gets its big man wide open in the lane for an uncontested dunk, you’re tempted to call the game before the first TV timeout.

12:35 – I really hate the one-and-done players that come through college. I know that you’ve heard it a million times already, but it cheapens the game so much. I think that there is more overall talent that has led to some of these upstart mid-major teams, but another big part of the trend is that these teams like Butler and VCU are featuring four or five upperclassmen who have played together for a couple of seasons.

Teams like Kentucky will still have better talent, but there is something to be said for being comfortable and familiar with the other four guys on the court with you.

My wacky solution to this is to create a sort of trial run for all of the guys who want to go straight from high school to the pros. They shouldn’t be eligible for the draft out of high school, but they should be allowed to play one year in the NBA D-League, with all of these first-year guys getting only their meals, hotels and travel paid for.

After one year of playing better competition than they would have faced in college – and thus, getting a better idea of how they’d stack up in the NBA – they should be able to make the choice to either enter the draft or go to college as a sophomore.

12:52 – Less than 14 minutes into the game and Plumlee already has three dunks for Duke.

Albany is playing the part of Rocky in the first movie of the franchise. The Great Danes are just standing there on defense and getting pummeled with haymakers. They’re just barely hanging in there with a floater every other trip down the floor, but I don’t know if they’re going to make it to the final bell.

12:58 – Florida Gulf Coast tips off in a little while. Yahoo! had a feature story the other day about how one of the dorms (or maybe a student housing complex? I just skimmed it) is sitting right on the beach in Fort Meyers. It’s no wonder that these guys are rising so quickly after making the leap to Division I.

It’s really unfair though. I work hard most days and can barely afford to take a three day vacation to the beach, but these guys are getting a free ride to college and LIVING on the beach.

The Eagles are stuck in 30-something degree Philadelphia for their first round game. I wouldn’t blame them one bit if they mailed it in and got back to their perpetual spring break party as soon as possible.

1:12 – Albany goes on an 8-0 run and pulls within 35-26 at halftime. It just doesn’t look like they have enough scoring options to keep it going, but it’s just close enough to make me a little nervous.

Meanwhile, Ole Miss and Wisconsin are tied up at 15-15. Marshall Henderson has just two points so far, but in all fairness, that’s mostly because he’s been walking through the crowd trying to hook up with the mothers and sisters of Badgers players.

1:29 – I wonder what the per diem is for players at the tournament. I know that the NCAA covers team travel and lodging for postseason games, but I would assume that teams are left to fend for themselves when dinner time rolls around.

That’s a double-whammy for some of these smaller schools like Albany. They’re probably going to lose a double-digit game to end the season, pack into their team vans, then stand in line at one of Philly’s cheesesteak joints while watching the Duke charter bus pull into an upscale steakhouse.

1:36 – Let me take a quick moment to thank everyone who is following this blog throughout the first two days. This is easily the most traffic my site has ever seen. Keep telling your friends and don’t forget to come back next week for my MLB previews.

1:45 – Jacob Iati is striping his 3’s for Albany. Unfortunately for Iati, he’s the only one on his team capable of doing so. Duke just drove that point home as the Devils watched him drain another long bomb, then trotted down the court and had Seth Curry – one of their MANY shooters – bank in a 3 to answer. It was almost as though they were trying to spite Albany for continuing to make shots.

FUN FACT: Jacob Iati is from my home town and played his high school ball at York Catholic, my dad’s alma mater

1:53 – The ACC has really taken a step back when it comes to overall talent. The conference is still good for producing one or two teams that can compete for the national title each year, but most of the depth is gone.

It used to be that the top 6 or 7 teams in the conference were a threat to win the ACC tournament and that most of them were locks for at-large bids to the NCAA tournament if they didn’t win the conference. This season, Miami and Duke are solid title contenders, but N.C. State was wildly underwhelming and North Carolina needed a strong last month of the regular season to get into the tournament.

Those are the only four ACC teams in the field and there really isn’t a good argument to be made that any of the other teams got snubbed. Maryland and Virginia had some high profile wins, but also some awful losses. The rest aren’t even worth discussing.

At least things should change when Syracuse, Louisville and Pittsburgh join the party.

2:01 – Mason Plumlee has spent approximately half of the Duke-Albany game hanging from the rim.

2:16 – This Duke game really is just like the first Rocky movie. Albany doesn’t have a knockout punch, but that isn’t stopping them from throwing all of the jabs and body blows that it can.

The Great Danes have certainly won over the crowd.

On a less positive note for Albany, Great Danes is a pretty crappy nickname. I mean, at least they don’t use ‘Mean Green’ or ‘Big Red’, but it’s still a poor effort. It’s certainly no ‘Italian Stallion’

I need to watch a Rocky marathon after the games wrap up tonight.

2:26 – Miami and Pacific are underway in what has to set a record for the biggest distance between schools competing against each other in the tournament. Has Hawaii ever been in the big dance? If so, I guess they would hold the title.

Anyways, this matchup has to have the lowest number of family/friends/fans from the schools in attendance. Miami is as southeast as it gets and Pacific is out by the San Francisco Bay. The location for this game, you ask? Austin, Texas. Because that’s the obvious choice.

2:43 – Marshall Henderson catches fire in the second half as Ole Miss gives the 12-seeds their third upset of the tournament. The most impressive part of this performance is that Henderson was able to drop 19 points on the Badgers whilst firing off profanity-laced tweets at Wisconsin fans.

You just know that he’s the guy that gets smashed at parties and talks to girls about naming his junk. 5-to-1 odds that he goes with “Colonel Reb”

2:52 – The hits keep coming for the ACC. N.C. State had a nice run in last year’s tournament, making them the trendy pick to win the conference this season. The Wolfpack came up well short and are getting throttled by Temple near the end of the first half.

This is why I don’t have Duke or Miami anywhere near the title game. Watching them play, I firmly believe that they’re both top-10 (top-5, maybe?) teams. But they’ve also both lost a handful of games to the crud that made up the majority of the ACC. I think that the Devils and ‘Canes are capable of beating anyone in the country. What concerns me is that they’ve proven that, on the wrong night, they can also lose to pretty much anyone.

2:58 – Did I just hear singing at the Temple-N.C. State game?

That was more that just a normal rhythmic chant coming from the crowd. It sounded more like the singing of an alma mater than a fight song, and there weren’t any instruments playing.

I could totally get down with singing – a la European soccer fans – at basketball games. Having a designated victory song would be a pretty cool way to wind down the last couple of minutes of easy victories. The only thing about these songs is that you can’t go for quality. There should be a three-drink minimum required to participate. The whole thing should sound like a melodic, rambling mess until you hit the chorus.

3:06 – Jeep is using Al Pacino’s speech from “Any Given Sunday” in a commercial. I don’t know how I feel about that. Listening to the entirety of the speech makes you want to run through a brick wall, punching puppies and kicking kittens as you go. But without all of the swearing, it’s really not getting its message across.

How am I supposed to drive my Jeep Liberty like a REAL MAN if you won’t at least drop a few F-bombs on me?

3:32 - Is there a greater tragedy in this tournament than the fact that Gus Johnson is no longer calling the games? The man’s play-by-play calls could make a high school chess match exciting.

If you’re ever having a bad day, wander over to YouTube and watch a Gus Johnson montage. There is no way that your day won’t be instantly better.

N.C. State is rallying hard, but even if they do come the whole way back, it just won’t sound the same without the cries of “DAGGER!!!” followed by the sound of Gus nearly falling out of his chair.

3:45 – I wonder what it would take to get tossed out of a tournament game? Obviously, taking a swing at someone will get you the door, but I’m thinking more along the lines of what coaches can get away with saying.

Officials won’t be shy to hand out a technical to a coach, but I bet it would take something pretty sensational to draw a second technical and an ejection. Coaches for those really low seeds should use this to their advantage if they’re in a close game. Yell whatever you want. As long as you aren’t storming onto the court or throwing things, it’s the ref who will look bad if he ejects you. If you can break down the ref, maybe you get that whistle when you really need it.

3:57 – Apparently, you shouldn’t mess with Philadelphia basketball. Temple was able to hold off N.C. State and now LaSalle – after taking down Boise State in the Frist Four (reprisal from yesterday: puke) – is all over No. 4 seed Kansas State.

With one upset in the bag and another one well underway, No. 9 seed Villanova could really make it a party with a win over North Carolina.

Just think of how good Philly hoops could be if a certain ‘Fresh Prince’ hadn’t been driven out of town all those years ago.

4:11 – I love my job as a sports writer, but I think that it would be awful to have to cover the NCAA tournament. Sure, you’d get to see some of the best teams in the country, but you’d also miss out on the vast majority of the action.

It would be incredible to get to interview players from a No. 15 seed after they shocked the world in an upset, but it’s much more likely that you’ll get the short end of the stick. Four games get played at each venue in the first round. You’re there from 11 in the morning until almost midnight and for every 1 vs. 16 snoozer that you have to sit through, the out of town scoreboard is flashing up buzzer-beaters and huge upsets that you aren’t able to watch.

I’d much rather be holed up in my living room with a two TVs, a case of beer, and plenty of free time.

4:21 – La Salle doing an absolute hospital job on Kansas State. The Explorers (come on, La Salle. You can do better than that) are up 44-26 at the break.

Have to credit fellow gsufans.com member (and hopefully, a devoted reader of this blog) ‘GSUfanforever’ for this gem:

La Salle – French for “Whipping your fanny”

4:31 – Are any of you readers in or around the Dayton area? If so, could you be on the lookout for the James Madison basketball team? This game is already four minutes in, but I haven’t seen them yet.

4:40 – Just now tuning in to the Creighton-Cincinnati game. What in the hell is going on with Cincy’s uniforms? It looks like they all got hit by the Harlem Globetrotters’ bucket of confetti.

Those things are beyond awful. At least the Blue Jays are doing their best to make sure that we won’t have to watch these sartorial nightmares run around the court much longer.

4:55 – Regretfully, I’m going to have to take a break for a few hours. I’ve got to go cover the Portal baseball team. Normally, that would mean that I’d be back in an hour after they lose by 20 and the game is called off after three innings, but they have managed to find an equally awful opponent today, so there’s no telling how long it could drag on.

You guys talk amongst yourselves. I’ll be back as soon as I can.

9:17 – Sorry about that. I severely underestimated how suspect the pitching in that game would be and it takes a while to recount all of the action in a 13-11 ballgame.

But now I’m back for the final bloc of games and we can ride this thing out together

9:29 – Man. I step away for a couple of hours and everything goes to hell.

Had anyone ever even heard of Florida Gulf Coast before today? At least No. 15 Cinderellas like Lehigh and Norfolk State from last year had been to their share of tournaments before.

The Eagles have literally no basketball history. Seriously. Half of the entire Wikipedia entry on the team is the sentence describing FGCU’s win over Georgetown. The Hoyas have disappointed in the tournament plenty of times before, but this year’s group has set the bar at a new low for future teams to trip over.

9:37 – La Salle blew its 17 point lead, but managed to upset K-State at the wire. Unfortunately, Villanova couldn’t complete the aforementioned Philadelphia sweep as the Wildcats bowed out to North Carolina.

Normally, I’d be all for the Tar Heels getting bounced early, but now a showdown is set with Kansas. Aside from the fact that two of the three most historically successful basketball schools in the country are meeting in the tournament, this is big because Roy Williams now has to coach against his former Jayhawk team.

The awkwardness of the interview where reporters asked Williams if he was leaving for Carolina mere minutes after his Kansas team lost in the 2003 title game is still lingering over Lawrence.

9:57 – The President’s bracket took a pretty big hit with Wisconsin (had them in the Elite Eight) bowing out in the first round. But considering shockers like Harvard, La Salle and FGCU, his picks still are looking as bad as most peoples.

I wonder what would happen if Obama picked a perfect bracket. Would conspiracy theories arise about the highest office in the land fixing games? Would he automatically qualify for a third term? Would Fox News use it as proof that he is the Antichrist?

These are important questions that need to be answered, people!!!

10:04 – No. 10 seed Oklahoma is looking sharp early on. I’m surprised that the Sooners don’t make deep runs in the tournament more often.

The state has all of the early 19^th century Dust Bowl traits as Kansas, yet basketball fever didn’t quite catch on to the same effect. I’m sure that the Sooners are quite content with their decision to save all of their bat-shit insanity for football, but how awesome would it be to watch the Sooner Schooner stampede across a crowded basketball court?

10:22 – Kansas goes off in the last bloc of games as the final No. 1 seed to see action.

The Jayhawks are going up against Western Kentucky, which is a complete mess, no matter how you look at them. As the number 6 seed in their own conference (the not-so almighty Sun Belt), you know that their credentials are suspect.

Then, there is the name. Western Kentucky is the Hilltoppers. What is that supposed to be? I was bagging on La Salle for being the Explorers, but at least those guys have a sense of adventure. WKU seems content to mount the biggest hill in town, see what there is to see, then call it a day.

And don’t even get me started on their amorphous blob of a mascot. He’s supposed to be a red towel, which is another weird and baffling story about WKU history that I won’t bore you with. Maybe the announcers will get around to that factoid when Kansas is up by 40 in the second half.

10:37 – Did you know that there are now 160 Division I teams that make the postseason? The NIT was always a nice consolation for some of the major conference teams that didn’t quite have a good enough year or for mid-major teams that can play with the best, but who screwed up in their conference tournament.

A few years ago, the CBI began play. This was nothing but a shameless money grab for schools who had no pride, but plenty of fans that would buy tickets if they were given a few more games to host.

Now, there’s something called the CIT. I haven’t looked, but I’m sure that whatever teams are making up this fourth-tier tournament are an affront to the good name of mediocrity. Any guesses on who won last year’s CIT? It was Mercer, who I wouldn’t have even been sure had a basketball team if I hadn’t been to one of their games before.

I can only assume that the championship venue for this clash of titans is a random YMCA gym, provided they can get a good time slot to rent out.

10:47 – Those Hilltoppers came to play! A 24-21 lead for WKU late in the first half has our second No. 1 seed of the tournament sweating out its first game.

If Western wants to pull the upset it’s going to half to go on a big run. Not that Kansas is bound to go on a run of its own (although it probably will), but No. 16 seeds that stay close until the end always seem to have all of the cards fall against them in the waning minutes.

Not only do they have to beat one of the best teams in the nation, but all of the whistles tend to favor the top seed. I don’t think that refs are trying to dictate the outcome of the game, but they probably subconsciously defer to the No. 1 since no top seed has ever lost its first game. When the fateful day comes that a No. 16 seed wins, I imagine it will be a game like the Florida Gulf Coast upset where the underdog comes out firing, gets a comfy lead, and never slows up.

11:04 – The United States leads Costa Rica 1-0 at halftime in their World Cup qualifier. This concludes my blog’s entire 2013 soccer coverage. We’ll see you at next year’s World Cup preview!

11:09 – Iowa State and Notre Dame were close early on, but the Cyclones have now run out to a 15 point lead early in the second half.

The Fighting Irish are becoming notorious for this sort of behavior. They always play well enough to pop into the top-25 once or twice during the season and the name/conference recognition is usually enough to give them a respectable seed. They’re never seeded – or thought of – so highly that an upset makes for a huge story, but you can almost always count on them to fall to a lower seed.

Other offenders of this nature: Vanderbilt, USC, Maryland, Michigan, Iowa

11:28 - San Diego State is trying to pull away from Oklahoma. The Aztecs are another one of those mid-majors that is sticking around as a force instead of fading away once one core group of seniors departs.

All of these teams seem to follow the same rise to prominence before becoming a mainstay on the national radar. They usually make one or two uneventful tournament appearances and gain a reputation in their own conference, then have that one HUGE win in the tournament that captures everyone’s attention. A few of these teams – like San Diego State – have even taken the next step, bringing back a handful of players from the team that pulled the big upset, posting an incredible regular season mark the next year, then challenging for a high seed and winning a few more tournament games.

The blueprint has been set, and I think that teams like Butler and VCU making annual deep runs is going to become the rule instead of the exception.

11:36 – Western Kentucky has only scored two points in the first six minutes of the second half. Luckily for the Hilltoppers, Kansas isn’t faring much better. But I’m sticking to my prediction. WKU is now down by two and it’s running out of time to build the 10 point cushion that it would need to hold off a top seed through the last few minutes.

11:46 – I think that I’ve found a practical use for that CIT tournament. We should take the winner – which I am dubbing “The Undisputed 129^th Best Team In America” – and put them up against whoever wins the women’s NCAA tournament. Not to sound chauvinistic, but I bet the dudes win by 60.

11:54 – San Diego State rolls into the round of 32.

Is anyone still keeping tabs on schools that are deemed to have offensive nicknames? What have the Aztecs never made that list?

I don’t consider simply naming yourself after a former Indian tribe to be offensive, but that never stopped a bunch of other people from getting their panties bunched up about it. The Washington Redskins are constantly under fire. The Florida State Seminoles have been picketed and boycotted despite working with – and having the approval of – the still-existing Seminole nation. The North Dakota Fighting Sioux face legal action from the NCAA despite the fact that nobody actually lives in North Dakota.

I just don’t get it. I’ll admit that some of the cartoonish logos and overly flamboyant mascots previously used by some teams could easily upset people who take their heritage seriously. But I don’t think that anyone could sit there with a straight face and say that any team with an Indian-related name is abusing or sullying the namesake in any way nowadays.

12:05 – How fitting that midnight marks the end of Western Kentucky’s Cinderella bid. Give them credit though. They gave it one hell of a run.

P.S. – Hilltoppers is still a ridiculous nickname.

12:23 – After that sort-of close call with Kansas, it seems anticlimactic that there is still one more game going on. The Minnesota-UCLA game isn’t necessarily a bad one (plenty of drama since the losing coach might be fired despite multiple career trips to the Final Four), but I would have thought that the NCAA would end the night with something stronger than a 6-11 matchup where neither team is a big name or even a potential sleeper.

While they slug it out for a few more minutes, I’m going to reflect on what I’ve learned during this whole live-blogging fiasco.

-         I’m not filling out a bracket the next time I do this. If I do, the bracket won’t be in a money pool. So many times, I wanted to hijack 30 minutes of this thing to vent on one of my top seeds that was playing like crap (I’m still not talking to you, New Mexico), but I’m sure that all of you have your own bracket problems to worry about.

-         I’ve got to hydrate better. With relatively little work to do during this grand experiment, it was inevitable that a non-small number of cocktails were going to work their way into this thing. I don’t think that they made my observations worse – although the swearing did increase – but it made my workout and 10 miles on the stationary bike this morning really, REALLY suck.

-         I need to get a new laptop. Mine has a battery that is shot, giving me all of about five minutes away from a power source before everything shuts down. Laundry went unfolded, dishes went unwashed and pets went unfed because I have been tethered to this couch for 80 percent of my waking hours for two days. Based on the looks I’m getting from the girlfriend – who I have also had to neglect – I might be spending some of my sleeping hours here as well.

-         Eat less food. Fair warning – I’m about to talk about pooping… OK. I’m not going to lie. I got VERY invested in this thing. I’m keeping tabs on my time tags for each post and I’ve been getting anxious every time I thought that you guys had been waiting too long for an update. That said, eating the ‘inferno’ hot wings for lunch today was a bad idea. I don’t want to be stuck in the bathroom while you guys are clicking refresh and getting nothing new.

12:30 – Wow. While I was getting all of that out of my system, Minnesota went ahead and took UCLA behind the woodshed. I know that the Bruins were a little banged up, but I would have thought that they would have given the Big Ten version of N.C. State (read: vastly overrated at beginning of season and doing nothing to convince detractors otherwise) a little bit more of a fight.

I wonder what would happen if UCLA put John Wooden’s coffin at the end of the bench? I bet they’d win at least 20 games.

12:38 – Even if some of these upsets hadn’t developed, you’d have to admit that the lower seeds fared very well in the first round and that it’s obvious that parity is steadily marching onward in college basketball.

Those 1-16 matchups used to have scores like 103-52, but no top seed scored more than 83 points and two failed to make it past 70. Even more telling – the average margin of victory was just 16.25 points. Not bad for a bunch of 16-seeds that used to lose by several touchdowns each year.

12:46 – Aaaannnnnd, that’ll do it. Minnesota wraps up a win to finish off the first round of the tournament, and with it, my 36 ½ hour long running account of the action.

Let me take another moment to thank everyone who has been checking in over the last couple of days. As I said before, this has been my blog’s most successful post BY FAR and that’s all because of you guys constantly checking in every hour to see if I had gone completely insane yet.

It’s been 10,302 words of scoreboard watching, vile insults, and hopefully not-totally-awful jokes. I’ve enjoyed bringing you every one of those words, but if you don’t mind, I’m going to watch the second round in peace and without a laptop surgically attached to my hands.

Thanks again for tagging along for the ride. Don’t forget to come back next week for my preview of the MLB season.

March Madness: On your mark. Get set. PROCRASTINATE!!!

Welcome, everybody, to the most exciting two days of sports that the year has to offer.

Even if you’re not a huge fan of college basketball, there’s simply no resisting the allure of the NCAA Men’s Basketball Tournament. The craziest part of the three week long tournament is that the first two days – in which half of the field will be eliminated – is usually more fun to watch than the Final Four or championship game.

Even if you haven’t thrown $10 into your office pool, there’s still plenty of fun to be had. That first Thursday and Friday of the tournament have become a sort of faux-holiday, with even the most uptight companies all but surrendering hopes of productivity as workers constantly refresh box scores or stream the games online.

While many of you are stuck in the office, I – thanks to my flexible work hours and the fact that, technically, my job requires me to keep up with the games – will be holed up in front of several televisions throughout the day.

On the off chance that your tyrannical office doesn’t have a television and has blocked the video streaming sites, I invite you to join me here as I live blog the entirety of the first two days. Check back here throughout the afternoon and into the evening as I keep you up to date with random musings and delirious ramblings that occur when you barely move and watch 32 games in about 36 hours.

11:58 – Ladies and Gentlemen, we’ve come to zero-hour.

In about 15 minutes, this year’s NCAA tournament will tip off. If you’re one of those people who likes to argue that we’ve been playing the tournament for the last couple of days with the ‘First Four’ (puke), please feel free to argue. You can scream as loud as you want. All of those teams will be gone by the end of the weekend, so I really don’t care.

But as for the games scheduled for today and tomorrow, prepare yourselves for a pair of 12-hour television blocs of unmitigated awesomeness.

Some of you have had the foresight to come down with a timely 48-hour stomach bug or a deceased relative and can watch from the comfort of your own home. Others might be stuck sneaking peaks every few minutes while the boss isn’t looking. Either way, I invite you to check in from time to time over the next two days as I live blog this spectacle.

*looks at watch – its 11:58*

Well, it would just be wrong to start drinking before noon.

*commences twiddling thumbs*

12:07 – I see that CBS has taken a page from its weekly NFL coverage and decided to cram as many analysts as possible onto the set of its pregame show. Come on, CBS. It’s a 15 minute pregame show… Less if you count commercials. What is the point of putting five guys behind the desk.

The cheesiest part is how all of these mega casts have distinct personalities for each of the cast members. You’ve got your host, your borderline Hall of Fame former player, your wacky color commentator type of character, your just-retired loudmouth former player, and a wild card. It’s like watching those boy bands from the 90s where each member had to fit a certain personality to create the image the band creators wanted.

It’s not weird that I remember that A.J. was the bad-boy of the Backstreet Boys, right?

Oh. And now I see that there are two other studios in two different cities, all devoted to keep us up to the second. When will all of these guys have time to talk for more than 10 seconds at a time?

12:15 – Over/under on promos for The Masters during today’s coverage: 23

GET OUT OF MY HEAD JIM NANTZ!!!

12:26 – Valparaiso is playing Michigan State in the first game of the day. Bryce Drew, who famously hit a 3-pointer to clinch a first round upset for Valpo over Ole Miss in – I’m going to say, 1998? – is now the head coach of the Crusaders.

I still remember watching that game with my best friend back in middle school, then spending the next hour trying to recreate the shot out in his driveway.

Seeing Bryce Drew in a suit and entering the early stages of male pattern baldness instead of flopping around on the floor makes me feel old.

12:39 – The last time that I did one of these, I alluded to my bracket and the buckets of red ink that it would take to properly score my picks. To avoid any controversy on whether I’ve actually called any games right, I’ll lay out some of the important predictions from my bracket for this year.

Seeing as how I filled out three different brackets for three different pools – because entering more than one bracket in a given pool should be punishable by death – we’ll go with the picks from the pool which will pay me the most money:

First round upsets

Belmont over Arizona

Iowa State over Notre Dame

South Dakota State over Michigan

Colorado over Illinois

Bucknell over Butler

Second round surprises

Memphis over Michigan State

Wisconsin over Kansas State

San Diego State over Georgetown

N.C. State over Indiana

UNLV over Syracuse

Hey. You aren’t a 1-3 seed, but you’re in the Elite Eight

UNLV

Final Four

Louisville defeats New Mexico

Kansas defeats Miami

Champion

Kansas – the only team who has ever won me a tournament pool in my lifetime. Thank you, Mario Chalmers.

12:45 – No. 6 Butler vs. No. 11 Bucknell – the only one of the first bloc of games where I have predicted an upset – just started. And of course it’s on the one channel that I don’t get at my house.

12:59 – Valpo getting thoroughly pummeled. Seriously. Can someone out there tell me what exactly TruTV is or how I can pick up the signal?

1:13 – I really, REALLY wish that they would let cameras into the war room as the bracket is being filled out by the selection committee. I don’t even need it to be a live feed. Just send a documentary crew – a la “Hard Knocks” – to wherever the committee meets around Wednesday of conference championship week and let the cameras roll.

They could show ‘The Building of the Bracket’ just before the tipoff of the first First Four (puke, still) game and draw in millions of viewers.

This would undoubtedly lead to cries of corruption and certain members of the committee being vilified by fan bases who are snubbed or offended at their seeding/region, but you can always hide behind the fact that the choosing of the final at-large teams and almost all of the seeding is entirely subjective. The NCAA has already made a mockery of itself by creating those first four play-in games for the sake of getting two more nights of primetime viewing. Why not go for another hour of commercial sales?

1:29 – If there’s one thing that is certain in any NCAA tournament, it’s that Verne Lundquist will somehow be behind the mic for a big upset and that, invariably, he’ll toss out some awful one-liner to commemorate the occasion.

Possibilities for this year:

Oregon over Okie St. – “The Duck quack while Oklahoma State cracks!”

St. Mary’s over Memphis – “And the Gaels advance as a cold wind blows for Memphis!”

Northwestern St. over Florida – “The Demons star in a nightmare for the Gators!”

S.D. State over Michigan – “Michigan the higher seed, but the grass is greener for the Jackrabbits!”

1:36 – My first upset pick not looking so hot as Bucknell manages just 14 points in the first half.

Also, some breaking news coming out of that game. We’ve learned that Butler coach Brad Stevens is finally old enough to get his drivers license and will be driving the team around to various parties after the game, so long as he’s back at the house before curfew.

1:44 – After three years, our long national nightmare is over. NAPA Auto Parts is once again a big sponsor of the tournament – all but ensuring a commercial for the company every 10 minutes or so – but has mercifully stopped running the commercial featuring that annoying “NAPA know how” song with all of the creepy lip syncing and weird person-to-camera unblinking eye contact that makes me feel like I need to take a shower.

The new commercial is still a little weird, but it got a couple of laughs out of me. If nothing else, at least this new commercial is plain and simple enough that I can drown it out as white noise if I’m not watching the television.

1:58 – No. 8 Pittsburgh and No. 9 Wichita State tipped off a few minutes ago, giving me a reprieve from the shellacking that Sparty is putting on Valpo.

This game is particularly intriguing for college basketball traditionalists who would just LOVE to see the winner of this game knock off No. 1 Gonzaga in the second round. Sure, neither Pittsburgh nor Wichita is a perennial power and neither has won a national title, but the fact that a mid-major conference has a No. 1 seed is just killing some of these analysts. They don’t mind upsets and unknowns making runs in the tournament – which is exactly why they would want to see the Shockers take out the Zags – but you can just see the cringing going on with some of these talking heads when the stats dictate that they have to call a team like Gonzaga one of the best in the country.

If Gonzaga does bow out early, you can chalk up another Lundquist gem about there “being a new Cinderella in town” or something idiotic like that.

2:18 – Doug Gotlieb has got to be loving life right now.

For the last few years, he’s been the one ESPN Radio personality that has really been on top of the whole college basketball landscape. His show was the only one worth listening to around tournament time. Too bad he wasn’t given enough credit since some guy who was less knowledgeable, but could speak just as well and looked better in a suit (Andy Katz, I’m looking in your direction) used all of the pretty graphics that television can provide to wow people looking for information.

With his move to CBS, not only did Gotlieb get to go home, but he now gets to do color commentary at the tournament and is one of the most respected voices at his company when it comes to college hoops.

Good for you, Doug.

2:36 – For at least the 10^th consecutive year, CBS cameras/program directors fail to realize the significance of the Wichita State Shockers’… um… unique hand gesture.

This will never cease to be hilarious for me as my mind will never surpass the level of high school freshman.

2:43 – We’ve finally reached that gooey middle of the television schedule where it is nearly impossible to find a spot where there is no live game action to be seen.

I really like how the tournament has evolved with its start times over the years. There used to be a bloc of games that all tipped off at a certain time. That seemed like a good thing, but it turned bad if two games both entered the final minute and were close. You can’t make me Sophie’s Choice an NCAA tournament game. That’s sadistic.

The new staggered schedule is much better. You only have one option for the first half hour of the bloc – which is great for the network since there is nowhere to turn the channel to when commercials come on – but there is a greatly reduced chance that all of the games will be at halftime or in a vital moment at any given time.

I also appreciate the couple of hours between the final start time of the second bloc and the first tip-off of the third bloc. That 30 minute window with no games going on gives me just enough time to do something work related so that I have a solid argument that I deserve to get paid for the day.

2:51 – Bucknell loses, and my dreams of a perfect bracket go down. I was so close…

3:12 – I’m still pretty bummed out that my beloved Georgia Southern Eagles never made the tournament while I was a student there. Travelling to whatever outpost – since I’m assuming that GSU would be somewhere in the 14-16 range – would have been a blast.

When I first got into the tournament as a kid, I used to wonder why the fans of whatever scrub school even bothered to go to a game that they were destined to lose by 30 points. I could understand families travelling to watch the game, but nothing else.

And yet, every year there was a 200-person student section and a pep band cheering their asses off hundreds of miles from home as their No. 16 seed got its face rearranged by Duke or North Carolina.

After being a fixture in the ‘Hanner Hooligans’ student section at GSU games throughout my undergrad, I now see the error of my ways. I would have dropped everything and scraped together every cent I had for the privilege of bussing up to Detroit (Or Kansas City, or Philadelphia, or wherever) to cheer on the Eagles. If they ever do make the dance, I’d still be hard pressed not to make the trip. It would be so fun that I wouldn’t even mind the blowout loss.

3:32 – Wichita State starting to pull away from Pittsburgh. This is only leading to more ‘shockers’ being thrown up by the WSU faithful. I am incredibly entertained.

3.39 – I’m out of competitive games that are in the final minutes, so I’m having to dig deep into the bag of rants and random thoughts.

Why don’t we send whoever the defending national champion is to play for us in the Olympics every four years?

Sure, the world proved in 2004 that it could beat our NBA dream team, but I think that had more to do with a lack of participation from some of America’s best players and a lack of 100 percent effort from the ones who did play.

Think about it. There’s no doubt that a team like last year’s Kentucky squad could compete for the Olympic title. It might be a distraction for the guys who are on their way to the NBA, but it would be the ultimate reward for the guys who practiced hard, but rode the bench the whole season. Those guys still wouldn’t play much, but they’re probably on track to graduate and do their best to find a job in the lower middle class after college.

The stars will go on to multi-million dollar contracts and endorsement deals, but how sweet would it be for those guys to earn an Olympic medal for all of their trouble?

3:51 – What the hell is a Biliken? That mascot looks like it wants to steal all of Cindy Loo-Who’s presents and shove the Christmas tree back up the chimney.

4:13 – It’s always a little sad to see some of these small conference champions go out on such a sour note as high seeds have their way with them.

Especially the schools that haven’t made the tournament in five or more years. Those teams only get into the tournament by winning their conference tournament, meaning that the seniors of those teams hit the pinnacle of their entire basketball careers, savor it for a week, and are then – mostly – done with competitive basketball forever.

Think about it. For the teams in the field who haven’t made the dance in a while, their seniors were recruited to help turn the program around. Those guys worked their asses off for four or five years, then finally made that glorious run through their conference tournament to make it to the NCAAs. They were at the top of the world, on the front page of all the newspapers, and royalty on campus.

Now, they’re down by 27 to some No. 2 seed in the first half and those seniors will probably never play another meaningful game again.

Harsh.

4:40 - *Notice* - Irrational hatred ahead.

The hell with Davidson. I can’t stand those guys. They have all of the elitism and smugness of Duke without half of the talent. I’m fully aware that by ragging on their conference and quality wins, I’m putting down Georgia Southern, but any Eagle fan is used to insults and disappointment as far as basketball is concerned.

Davidson is giving Marquette a run for its money, and regardless of how my bracket plays out, this is the one game that I have a huge rooting interest in.

I suppose this is just an extension of the argument I have with fans from middle-of-the-road SEC fans each football season. Why are you rooting for a conference opponent when you root against them the other 364 days of the year? It’s not even like there’s conference pride on the line. The Southern Conference isn’t going to get any representative other than the conference tournament champion anytime soon, so why cheer for a team that has been the evil empire of the conference for a decade?

4:55 – Memphis is about to survive a scare in its first round matchup.

The game came against St. Mary’s, which played its way into the tournament Tuesday night. That begs the question. Now that there are play-ins for 11 and 12 seeds instead of just the traditional No. 16 sacrificial lamb, how do we handle early week brackets?

I always like to fire off a gut-instinct bracket on Yahoo! or ESPN (or some other website where you could luck into a huge payout), but now there are those potential upset seeds where there isn’t even a set team to fill the slot.

I’ll tell you how to handle that situation… You go ahead and pick anyway. I called VCU winning both its play-in game and its first round game a few years ago. There’s no better feeling than calling a team’s shot before it even makes the field of 64.

5:14 – Our first No. 1 seed is in action as Gonzaga takes on Southern.

Most No. 16 seeds go one of two ways. They either show incredible pluckiness and go full throttle to stay competitive for a half before running out of gas and getting rolled over, or they show up still drunk from the improbable run that got them to the big dance in the first place.

Southern went with the former, but just before all of the West Coast Conference haters could wet their pants and sync up their “we told you so”, Gonzaga ripped of 13 straight points to charge out in front. Southern is still putting up a good fight, but anyone with eyes can see that the Zags are a very talented team that could turn this into a laugher at any second.

5:21 – My updates are about to slow down thanks to having to lay out tomorrow’s sports page, but I’ll still be firing off observations when I get the chance. Go grab some dinner and prepare for the finish of the Davidson-Marquette game and the beginning of the third bloc of action.

5:39 – It’s looking like Davidson is going to pull the big upset. I am literally sickened by this. At least Davidson doesn’t have some smug poster boy like Steph Curry to run a millions cut-ins about before their next game. And maybe Butler can keep up its insane streak – 11 wins in its last 13 tournament games, with the only two losses coming in the championship round – and show the Wildcats what a real mid-major contender looks like.

Elsewhere, Southern hit a few shots to pull close to Gonzaga at the half. I’m sticking to my guns. The Zags have out-talented every team on their schedule so far and today will be no exception.

5:46 – Ha!!! Davidson... Those pieces of crap blew a seven point lead with 1:33 to play. I knew they’d tank it. I defy you to prove otherwise.

6:00 – Dinner time, and it looks like the much maligned 5 seeds might serve up another on the menu as Oregon leads Oklahoma State by 11 at halftime.

In all fairness to the Cowboys – who I think are a very good team – they might have gotten the worst possible draw. I’m not sure how teams get slotted into certain seeds, but I can’t fathom how the committee looked at the 22-win Ducks and pegged them as a No. 12. Usually the one trendy 5-12 upset that all of the talking heads promote is the one that I avoid, but this one seemed too tempting.

The Big 12 wasn’t incredibly good this year and I think that most people slept on the Pac 12 (insert complaint about East Coast Bias here). I don’t think that Oregon has what it takes to win two games, but beating one quality team shouldn’t come as a surprise to anyone.

6:18 – I’ve got to hand it to Southern. They’re playing hard and shooting the lights out, but – as predicted – it looks like the well is starting to run dry. All of the effort they’re exerting in racing down court and pulling up for 3s is making their legs tired as Gonzaga starts to get buckets that are easier and easier.

6:31 – Oh, those pesky Jaguars. Another 3-point bomb pulls Southern within two points of Southern with four minutes to go. If I ever coach a team in a slum conference, it’s going to be nothing but 3-pointers at practice, morning, afternoon and night.

Look at all of the monumental upsets through the years and a great night from behind the arc is usually the common theme.

If I were running a No. 16 seed, I’d tell my guys to jack up 50 bombs against the No. 1 seed. You might have an off night and lose by a ton, but everyone is expecting that anyways. If you luck out and have the night of your life – BOOM! Historic upset.

6:45 – Kudos to Southern. They gave it one hell of a run. For 35 minutes, it seemed like they couldn’t miss, but in the final few minutes, it was Gonzaga knocking down all of the cold-blooded shots.

I remain confident in my prediction that Gonzaga will notch a few more wins. There have been plenty of great teams that managed to get a huge scare in the first round, but then rebounded to have a great tournament.

With Oregon up big on Okie St. at the 4:00 mark, I’m going to grab some dinner and do some work. I’ll see everyone in about an hour.

8:11 – NCAA tournament watching is on hold as I vigilantly (read: required by work) watch East Georgia College in the NJCAA tournament… hold on… one more second… OK. Forget that. Back to the real action.

8:34 – This just goes to show that there is no rhyme or reason in trying to figure out brackets.

If there was ever a year for underdogs and low seeds to run rampant, this was the one. We couldn’t hang on to a top-ranked team for more than a few weeks at a time and nobody seemed very confident in defining the top tier of talent at the end of the season.

I’m sure that the power vacuum at the top led to plenty of crazy looking brackets that were lined with upsets, but so far – at least in terms of seeding – the action couldn’t be more by-the-books.

If we don’t get an out-of-the-blue upset soon. SportsCenter isn’t going to know what to lead with at 11.

9:00 – Cal is trying to put some life into this party as the Golden Bears open up a second half lead on No. 5 UNLV. Putting my own bracket aside (Please, bracket gods. Spare my Runnin’ Rebels) at least we have some excitement.

I really wish that someone would cave in to horrible judgment and award Las Vegas a Final Four. Better yet, let’s just play the whole tournament in Sin City.

If you think that you have annoying ‘bracketologists’ at your office now, just wait until all of them are trying to factor in the trouble-loving tendencies of some teams. A No. 15 seed could become a favorite overnight if a team like Miami was let loose in Vegas. Five Hurricanes would show up for the tip-off with four still busy getting bailed out of jail and the rest unaccounted for.

9:40 – The final tip-off of the night features the game that ruined my bracket and shattered my confidence last season.

I know that Kentucky was the odds on favorite to take home the title last year, but – being the contrarian that I am – I tried to outthink the room and choose a different champion.

Missouri was an incredibly athletic team that had bounced around the top-10 all season and that featured five veteran starters. I thought that I had found the major conference version of the seasoned and tested mid-major teams that make serious noise, so I penciled them in as my dark horse champion.

The only good thing about Missouri’s first round game last season is that I was halfway in the tank and enjoying a med school graduation party when I got the news that they had managed to lose to No. 15 Norfolk State.

Screw you, Tigers. Go Rams!!!

9:58 – Going to take a quick timeout to take a step away from basketball and discuss the show that I’m currently having to record in order to keep viewing the tournament and faithfully reporting back to you.

*Shameless promotion alert*

Have you ever seen Archer? If your answer is no, head over to Netflix (don’t worry, they’re running the NCAA tournament at the same time next year) and stream the first three seasons. It’s beyond awesome. It’s James Bond with twice the risqué jokes, ten times the boozing and womanizing, and none of the needless plotline extenders that turn a cool story into a 2 hour trudge.

Seriously. Stop reading this and go watch Archer. I’ll have all of your updates when you come back.

10:31 – Poor Akron… First, LeBron left you and now you’re being humiliated on national television.

And how about VCU? They look like the new Butler. And that stands to reason. In a culture where technology and the flow of information are expanding exponentially, I suppose it should follow that the darling teams who come out of nowhere to enchant the country will now only have one or two fleeting seasons in the sun before we move on to someone new.

Gonzaga got a good five or six years of being THE mid-major that everyone kept their eye on, but we’ve had several – George Mason, Butler and VCU, to name a few – in just the last handful of years. Let’s take some time to savor the moment, people. After all, most of these programs are now taking their one crazy run and turning it into more than a few years of serious contention.

11:20 – Work took a little longer than I anticipated, but I’m here to finish strong on the first day of the tournament.

New Mexico entered as one of the dark horse darlings of the tournament and – much like Gonzaga earlier in the day – is feeling the heat as Harvard leads the No. 3 Lobos at halftime.

It was bad enough for the Zags to get a scare from the SWAC champs, but it would be devastating if New Mexico got knocked off by a bunch of nerds. Even worse, Harvard doesn’t even have two of its best players as they were both kicked off of the team during a preseason cheating scandal.

Come on. Who cheats at Harvard? How can you make the grades to get into one of the most prestigious schools in the country, then be dumb enough to get pinched in a scandal?

11:38 – Syracuse is pummeling Montana, but I’m not all that happy for the Orange.

Not only am I less than thrilled with having to capitalize color names just because the ‘Cuse can’t come up with a non-offensive nickname, but Jim Boeheim has done nothing but agitate me for over a year. I never used to have any strong feelings towards Boeheim or his team, but two years and a handful of scandals have caused me to start rooting against the guy.

This is the risk that coaches run when they make the choice to always turn a cold shoulder to the media. Boeheim has been nothing but an ass to reporters for over a decade, and now that Syracuse is under investigation, he’s wondering why the press is bearing down on him.

As a member of the sports media, I can’t say that I would handle things any differently if I was working the Syracuse beat. When you get nothing but platitudes, scorn and brush-offs when trying to discuss the most trivial of matters with a coach, it makes your job infinitely more difficult. But it’s a two-way street. If you make me look bad when you give me nothing good to write about when there aren’t any huge stories, then you can be damn sure that I’m going to be all over you for information and quotes when a story breaks that the whole country is aware of.

Syracuse used to hold a place in my mind as a solid, consistent program that should always be respected and possibly feared come tournament time. Nowadays, the Orange are too far removed from any big accomplishments to strike any fear into my heart, and the fact that they are being run by an ornery grandpa isn’t doing them any favors.

11:53 – Colorado State finally strikes a blow for the Mountain West by notching a win over Missouri.

Once again, I can already hear the mid-major haters howling. Despite not being home to schools named Louisville, or Kansas or Duke, the Mountain West had the highest-rated RPI in the nation this year.

The conference received an impressive five invites to the tournament, but the matchups have been less than ideal. Boise State lost in one of the play-in games before things really got started and Cal was given a virtual home game – despite being a No. 12 seed – against a UNLV team that had already proved it was better than the Golden Bears.

New Mexico is still struggling with Harvard and is the only chance for the conference to place a member in the Sweet Sixteen.

12:05 – We’re now over 12 hours into this mess. Be strong, everyone. Stay the course.

Syracuse is up on Montana by a ridiculous 53-17 margin early in the second half. Seeing as how the Orange routinely gets top seeds – and thus, inferior competition for two or three rounds each year – I’m amazed that they don’t fare better.

The Orange is famous for its 2-3 zone that it will never come out of under any circumstances. With so many underdogs in the bright lights for the first time, the pressure to make deep shots should be too much to bear. Unless some team gets freakishly hot from outside, there’s really no reason that the ‘Cuse should ever lose games early in the tournament.

12:14 – Harvard has New Mexico on the ropes. Somewhere, Ogre weeps. Damn nerds.

12:23 – The Crimson gets its first NCAA tournament win in school history. Good for the Ivy Leaguers.

The best part about not being an insane person who puts serious money down on my brackets is that even when one of my brackets blows up (thanks a lot, New Mexico), I can still appreciate the awesomeness of whatever upset caused my downfall.

Now I’m wondering how the good people of Harvard celebrate such an enormous win. Do they knock off studying an entire hour early? Do they do something droll, such as photoshopping a new periodic table for the chemistry lab so that a few of the elements are out of order? Or do they do it up right and blow through their trust funds on a two-week coke bender in Vegas?

I would hope for something that walks the line in between those extremes, but with something as crazy as a 3-14 upset, who am I to judge how you celebrate.

Well, seeing as how Montana doesn’t want this night to go on any longer, I’m willing to oblige and call things off before Syracuse finishes off the final game of the night. I’ll see all of you back here tomorrow at high noon.

Get some sleep. Tomorrow is another long day.

A mockery of a draft

Sorry for the long absence, everybody.

It’s a pretty busy time of year for sportswriters and as much as I love providing all of you with cheap laughs, I tend to not get paid if I don’t write some stuff that can go in the newspaper every once in a while.

The next month or so will bring much more frequent posting in the form of MLB team previews/predictions and my live blog of the first two days of the NCAA men’s basketball tournament – my personal tribute to the last enjoyable thing that I read from Bill Simmons before teams from Boston started winning and he turned into an insufferable homer.

As for today, football season is over, but last weekend’s NFL combine gives me just enough fodder for one more pigskin-related post until late August rolls around. Using the highlights (and lowlights) that individuals posted last week along with the past trends of teams, here is my own prediction of how the first round of the draft will go down.

1. Kansas City Chiefs select Luke Joeckel (OT – Texas A&M)

Poor Kansas City. The Chiefs suck so bad that they can’t even time up the appropriate year in which to suck more than any other team in the league. Any other year, a franchise quarterback might help to ease the pain of the team selecting No. 1 overall. Instead, there are no superstars-in-wait at the top of the board for KC this year. I suppose that taking an offensive lineman is always a good way to go if you don’t have any other good options. At least they don’t command quite as much money and its easier to sweep a bust pick under the rug when he will never have to touch the ball.

2. Jacksonville Jaguars select Jarvis Jones (LB – Georgia)

Now that the Jaguars have exhausted pretty much every good idea that might have made their franchise respectable, it’s time to move on to the bad ones. That isn’t to say that Jarvis Jones isn’t a good player – or a bad guy, for that matter. But the Jags should look at the fringe benefits of the players they select. J’Ville should draft nothing but former Florida and UGA players as they are the only ones who can get people to buy a ticket for a game at EverBank Field. EVEN MORE FUN: Those players should be able to show up and play in the UGA-UF game since the late October matchup will come about a month after the Jags are eliminated from playoff contention.

3. Oakland Raiders select Terron Armstead (OL – Arkansas Pine Bluff)

Following in line with the Chiefs’ thinking that the O-line is the way to go without big-name skill position guys on the board, the Raiders will also draft a big guy. Of course, the ghost of Al Davis will manage to screw this up and the Raiders will go for Armstead, who ran the fastest 40-yard dash of any OL at the combine. The Raiders will then proceed to lose their first 15 games of 2013 before winning the season finale once finally perfecting the tackle-eligible hail mary.

4. Philadelphia Eagles select Phil Knight (Chaiman – Nike, Inc.)

I still think that the Iggles were on to something with that whole “Dream Team” thing from a couple of years ago. In professional sports these days, looking good is half of the battle. Even if you don’t win games, being able to promote yourself as the best is going to win over fans, pack stadiums, and sell merchandise. When it comes to selling image, you can’t do any better than Nike. Even if Philly is awful again, I bet that Phil Knight could at least have them looking like winners. On a side note, if we could convince the Eagles’ fan base to buy each new jersey that Nike would unveil and funnel the proceeds to Washington, D.C., this whole national debt thing would be over before the season begins.

5. Detroit Lions select Bjoern Werner (DE – Florida State)

Calvin Johnson had the best season for any wide receiver in NFL history in 2012, but the receiving yardage record is all that he’ll take away from the year since every miraculous catch and touchdown grab was negated by the Lions’ awful defense giving up points. Werner should be able to immediately improve the Lions’ pass rush. Werner’s ability to speak German fluently could also be a mitigating factor in his draft stock. He would make a great ambassador if the United States somehow manages to pawn off Detroit on some other nation.

6. Cleveland Browns select Barkevious Mingo (LB – LSU)

This one is just too easy. A talented guy named Barkevious NEEDS to end up as an idol for the Dog Pound in Cleveland. With a sophomore season QB that will be 29 next year and no All-Pro talent at running back, tight end or receiver, it looks like the Browns are selling out on defense. And – to their credit – they have built a pretty decent defensive unit in the last couple of years. Who knows? Maybe Barkevious could be the tipping point that transforms the new Browns franchise that has totally sucked since 1999 back to the glory days of the early 90s when the old Browns franchise only kind of sucked.

!!!!!TRADE ALERT!!!!!

7. New England Patriots trade Ryan Mallet to Arizona Cardinals for the No. 7 pick.

Taking advantage of the Cardinals’ horrible front office, the Patriots then trade the No. 7 pick back to Arizona for its second and third round picks, plus first round picks in 2014 and 2015. Arizona then proceeds to select Geno Smith (QB – West Virginia) because, seriously, have you seen the QB situation in Arizona? They should draft seven quarterbacks and pray that one of them is competent enough to start.

8. Buffalo Bills select Eric Fisher (OT – Central Michigan)

For all of the problems that the Bills have, there are actually some decent offensive linemen on the roster already. Still, it never hurts to plan for the future. Fisher is the only player that figures to go in the top-10 who played his college football in a state that borders Canada. With Buffalo continuing to flirt with Toronto, they’ll need some more guys who are used to those cold northern winters. Expect plenty of Mounties to be drafted in later rounds.

9. New York Jets select Damontre Moore (DE – Texas A&M)

When playing in a division that grants you four games against the Dolphins and Bills each season, having a guy who can terrorize already shaky quarterbacks can be a game-changer. Moore can certainly provide that sort of chaos on the defensive front. If nothing else, he’ll probably wind up murdering Mark Sanchez in practice and the Jets will get a nice insurance payout to help them get a better passer in 2014. Meanwhile, Radio City Music Hall will erupt with ‘S-E-C’ chants when people figure out that Texas A&M is the only team to have a pair of players drafted in the top 10. Moore – who was recruited to play in the Big XII, which is annually stocked with awful defenses – is now the gold standard since he comes from an SEC defense.

10. Tennessee Titans select Kenny Vaccaro (S – Texas)

Wait a second. Did we just go through the first 10 picks in the NFL draft without selecting a running back or a wide receiver? And now we’re even taking safeties over the RB/WR class? Wow. This is probably a smart move for the Titans though. If they were to draft a running back, Chris Johnson would be so consumed by jealousy and insecurity that he’d spend the entire offseason planning the murder of the draft pick instead of diligently working on his offseason program of diminishing his skills and not earning any of his huge contract.

11. San Diego Chargers select Mike Glennon (QB – N.C. State)

If we could figure out a way to harness the power of Phillip Rivers’ trash talking and dirty looks directed at another N.C. State quarterback being brought in to succeed him, the world would finally have that elusive source of cheap, renewable energy. The only bad news is that it will take an entire scout team’s worth of censors to make it a clean energy. But seriously, would any of you be surprised if Glennon got into a game and Rivers ran onto the field to try and knock down his passes? He’d probably sprint to the opponents’ sideline and spend the rest of the game deciphering signals coming in from the Chargers’ bench.

12. Miami Dolphins select Dan Marino (QB – Pittsburgh)

Don’t you tell me for one second that Marino couldn’t walk on the field today and do better than any of the sacks of crap that Miami has trotted into the huddle for the better part of the last two decades. If Mario declines, they should at least offer a contract to Snowflake to get three points on the rare occasions that Tannehil gets the Dolphiins into scoring position.

13. Tampa Bay Buccaneers select Dee Milliner (CB – Alabama)

The Buccaneers swung and missed with Aquib Talib the last time they went for a defensive back in the first round, but Milliner looks like a much better bet. Unfortunately for the Bucs, New England will realize how well Talib worked out for them in 2012 after Tampa cut him loose. The Patriots will figure out a way to get Milliner and hoard a few more late-round draft picks while giving up just a scout team player and an intern that once put too much mayo on Bill Belichick’s sandwich.

14. Carolina Panthers select Sheldon Richardson (DT – Missouri)

I think that this will end up being a bad pick for the Panthers. Sure, they need a little help in the middle of their D-line, but they don’t need it badly enough to waste a first round pick on a defensive tackle. They play in a division with the Falcons, Buccaneers and Saints – three teams that will probably run between the guards a combined five times all of next season. Richardson could be good for team morale though. With a 40 time of just 5.02 seconds, Cam Newton should feel great about routinely seeing an NFL defender that he can actually run away from.

!!!!!TRADE ALERT!!!!!

15. New England Patriots select Dion Jordan (DE – Oregon)

This isn’t really a trade. The Saints are slotted to pick 15^th, but they’ll work out a deal to have someone else select Jordan for them just in case Roger Goodell is feeling grumpy on draft day and decides to throw more punishment at New Orleans. Immediately after the selection, the Patriots will release Jordan to the Saints. For going through all of that trouble, New England will take four late round draft picks off the Saints’ hands.

16. St. Louis Rams select Chance Warmack (OG – Alabama)

If we were still in the 1980s, the Rams’ progression over the last few seasons would be commendable. They were beyond god-awful five years ago, managed to get a decent quarterback in Sam Bradford (who then got hurt, leading to more god-awfulness, but also more high draft picks), and have since added a piece or two each season to make them borderline respectable. Unfortunately, this isn’t the old NFL where good teams take forever to build and can be held onto forever once assembled. It’s no big deal for a team to win just a few games one year and contend for a division or conference title just two or three years later. The Rams have done plenty of the former, but little of the latter. At least having a good offensive lineman will be a nice retirement present for Steven Jackson.

17. Pittsburgh Steelers select English Gardner (sprinter – Oregon)

Winning a Super Bowl is one thing. Staying motivated enough to win multiple titles is an entirely different matter. The addition of Gardner would serve as a perfect metaphor for the Steelers’ quest to get back to the top. As an attractive college junior, there is no doubt the Roethlisberger will be all over her. Too bad for him that she is the defending women’s national champion in the 100-yard dash – clocking in at just over 11 seconds. If Big Ben can figure out a way to track down that goal, another ring should be child’s play.

18. Dallas Cowboys select Star Lotuleilei (DT – Utah)

Always in the pursuit of extending the Cowboys’ brand, why wouldn’t Jerry Jones draft a guy named Star? It’s a great chance to reset Dallas’s legacy after countless disappointments in recent years. For Cowboys fans, it has to be a chilling thought to know that Lotuleilei has only seen one Cowboys playoff victory in his life. And that only leads to more questions. ‘Star’ probably isn’t an homage to Dallas since it hasn’t been much of a franchise for 20 years, which makes it just a really, really stupid name.

19. New York Giants select a roof for their stadium

The impending Super Bowl in New Jersey (note to Goodell: no matter how religiously you avoid saying ‘New Jersey’ and how much you tout NYC as a great atmosphere for a Super Bowl, THIS GAME IS GOING TO BE IN NEW JERSEY) has been drawing criticism since about five seconds after the location was announced two years ago. The seemingly never-ending bombardment of nor’easters hitting the east coast this winter is only making things worse. What is going to happen if two feet of snow gets dumped on MetLife Stadium a few days before the game and we play a white-out Super Bowl in a half empty stadium? Then again, the NFL has become so integral to the American way of life that they could care less. They could bar people from attending the Super Bowl at all and charge $500 to watch it on pay-per-view and still get a billion viewers. Getting back to the Giants, that roof will probably kill their salary cap. Luckily, the Patriots will come by and take 2^nd-7^th round picks off of New York’s hands since they can’t afford them.

20. Chicago Bears select Alec Ogletree (ILB – Georgia)

As sad as it is for Bears fans to admit, Brian Urlacher is pretty far past his prime and probably pretty close to the end of his NFL career. But he can give Chicago one final boost by being a mentor to his eventual replacement. For years, Urlacher headed up one of the best defenses of this generation and frequently made the Bears respectable despite a total lack of – and apparent indifference to – offense. Ogletree would probably be a great fit in the Windy City. Sure, he’s prone to a little drunk and disorderly conduct, but if he stays close to Jay Cutler when out at the bars, he’ll look like a saint by comparison.

21. Cincinnati Bengals select John Cyprien (S – Florida International)

The Bengals might not be able to figure out how to get past the Wild Card round of the playoffs – or the Houston Texans, for that matter – but there is no doubting Cincy’s dominance at the top of the police blotter. The Bengals easily lead the rest of the league in arrests since the 2000 season and extended their advantage last month when Andre Smith tried to get a gun through airport security. But I credit the Bengals for refusing to rest on their laurels. Cyprien doesn’t have a rap sheet, but anyone playing for a team that once had 18 players suspended for an in-game brawl must have a lot of potential. And that’s what drafts are all about, right?

22. St. Louis Rams select Keenan Allen (WR – California)

It might take 22 picks (about 17 ½ hours in NFL Draft real-time) but a wide receiver should go in the first round. Allen could finally give Sam Bradford more than one or two downfield options, which would give Bradford a better chance to live up to his potential. Of course, the Rams will have to work a little bit to keep all of their receiving options. Always looking to corner the market on scrappy white guys, New England might try to trade for Danny Amendola. In the end, the Rams will give the Pats a few late round draft picks just to shut up and leave them alone.

23. Minnesota Vikings select D.J. Fluker (OT – Alabama)

Normally, putting another talented offensive lineman in front of MVP and football-modified T-1000 Adrian Peterson would be considered unsporting. Unfortunately for the Vikings, they continue to do absolutely nothing well aside from handing Peterson the ball. Too bad this isn’t the NCAA. At the collegiate level, you can sell out on a niche scheme and dominate that aspect of the game so thoroughly that other shortcomings don’t matter. That doesn’t fly in the NFL. Minnesota probably won’t be a playoff team next season anyways, so I would appreciate it if they at least continue to improve the one watchable aspect of their game.

24. Indianapolis Colts select Zach Ertz (TE – Stanford)

I know that Russell Wilson went a little farther in the playoffs, but Andrew Luck was nothing short of amazing in his rookie season. He took an absolute dumpster fire that addend nothing but draft picks heading into 2012 and turned the Colts into a 12-win team. Not to get too far ahead of things, but even Peyton Manning had a year or two of futility in Indy before getting things rolling. So much of Luck’s play seemed to mirror that of his awesome college career at Stanford, right down to using Coby Fleener as a primary option. Adding another former Stanford tight end might seem like overkill, but Luck dominated with few receivers or running backs in college. Imagine what he could do with the same TE corps, plus Reggie Wayne and Austin Collie.

25. Seattle Seahawks select Eminem (rapper – Detroit)

The Seahawks seem to be pretty set moving towards the 2013 season. Seattle entered last year as a young team whose best years were supposed to be a few seasons down the road. Instead, they played all of their cards right – including starting Russell Wilson over highly-touted free agent Matt Flynn – and came within seconds of playing for the NFC Championship. Aside from Wilson’s emergence, there were few more entertaining storylines in Seattle than Richard Sherman and his shut-down abilities at cornerback. The only thing better than his defense was his incessant trash-talking. Rookies and future Hall of Famers alike got an earful from Sherman, who always managed to back up his talk with his play. His twitter outbursts were a little rough around the edges, but an offseason spent rap-battling Slim Shady should make him an unstoppable entertainment force next season. Also, Tom Brady – who fell victim to one of Sherman’s more publicized bits of trash talk last year – will complain about his feelings being hurt until the league awards Seattle’s fifth and seventh round picks to the Patriots.

26. Green Bay Packers select Cordarelle Patterson (WR – Tennessee)

The Cheeseheads have one of the most dangerous weapons in the league in Aaron Rodgers. Losing Donald Driver to retirement will be a bit of a hit (even though he was just a shadow of his former self, he was still a veteran leader), but that only opens up a hole to get even better at receiver. Patterson averaged almost 17 yards per reception last season and has been projected as an NFL contributor since his days as a 5-star recruit in high school. The biggest knock on him are the two years he first had to spend at a JUCO (read: too dumb to get into school anywhere), but Green Bay is the perfect spot for socially or intellectually challenged pros. The town is small enough to just hide from everyone if you want to, but the fans are also crazy enough to look the other way on everything so long as you haul in touchdowns. It would be like he never left an SEC fanbase!!!

27. Houston Texans select Robert Woods (WR – USC)

Maybe getting another big receiving threat to keep double teams off of Andre Johnson will be the thing that finally gets Houston to an AFC Championship game. The Texans took their sweet time turning into a good team, not notching a winning record or a playoff appearance in their first nine seasons, but they are a shining example of how history repeats itself. For the better part of the 70s and 80s, the Houston Oilers were the same team that the Texans have been for the last couple of years. Even with stars like Earl Campbell and Warren Moon, the Oilers never got over the hump. They racked up division titles and AFC Championship appearances, but never made the Super Bowl.

!!!!!TRADE ALERT!!!!

28. Denver trades every Broncos fan who won’t shut up about Tebow for a jumbotron that only ever displays a 50-foot tall image of Peyton Manning

I have to admit, I was pretty disappointed in some Denver Broncos fans last season. I can understand that many of them got a little wrapped up in Tebow-mania two seasons ago. That was perfectly understandable. Who doesn’t want to make their team out to be a little bit better than it probably was? But anyone bringing up the fact that Tebow has a playoff win with the Broncos while Peyton does not should be sent on a one-way trip to whatever town in the U.S. is farthest from an NFL franchise (I’m going to guess somewhere in Montana). These people are either stupid or picking the worst possible topic to argue just for the sake of being contrarian. For Denver, it would be worth missing out on a few million dollars per home game worth of lost fans to raise the collective football IQ of the stadium ten-fold.

29. New England Patriots select Sully McDowell (payroll expert – Boston College)

The Patriots will want to draft a lineman or something. But upon looking at their draft board, they’ll realize that – through doing nothing but trading down and stockpiling dozens of draft picks each season for the last decade – they technically hold the rights to every player in the league. Despite this seemingly huge advantage, New England will still find a way to flame out in the postseason.

30. Atlanta Falcons select Tyler Eifert (TE – Notre Dame)

If not for a chronic case of blowing huge first half leads, the Falcons could have easily won the Super Bowl. Despite some obvious defensive issues that will have to be addressed to keep that from happening again, Atlanta will likely be more concerned with replacing All-World tight end Tony Gonzalez, who is likely to retire this summer. The Falcons have built an absurd offense that features a top-10 quarterback in Matt Ryan, game-changing receivers in Roddy White and Julio Jones, and Jaquizz Rodgers, who impressed at running back in his rookie season. Eifert would be an ideal fit as his blocking would help an average offensive line and his soft hands and downfield receiving ability can make him a matchup nightmare. Things would go great with Eifert for a few weeks, but would eventually deteriorate when Atlanta fans figure out that he’s from Notre Dame and boo him off the field for no good reason.

31. San Francisco 48ers select Jonathan Cooper (C/OG – North Carolina)

A magical season ended in heartbreak for the 49ers as they came up just a few yards short of a Super Bowl title. San Francisco did almost everything right all season long and were one of the most balanced teams in the league. They won with defense, with running, with two different quarterbacks and with thrilling comebacks. But in the end, a well-timed blitz sent the 49ers’ last chance at a championship ring sailing harmlessly out of the end zone. San Francisco is set for another good run next season and there is no reason to think that it shouldn’t be a Super Bowl favorite. They don’t need much help or improvement, but if Cooper could see a blitz coming and get in the way for two seconds, it could make all of the difference for San Francisco.

32. Baltimore Ravens do not select anyone

The Ravens really wanted to draft someone to help support their quickly aging defense, but Ray Lewis wouldn’t let them near the microphone to announce the pick as he was in his 3,956^th hour of praising Jesus for single-handedly winning the Super Bowl for the Ravens.

I heard it on the radio...

For the sports obsessed like myself, the technological boom of the last decade or two has been nothing short of amazing.

In my short 27 years of bumming around the planet, the methods and extents to which we can get information on the world of sports has progressed from waiting for the next morning’s box scores in the newspaper to getting updates via talk radio, to the adoption of the 24-hour sports television news cycle. As a kid in the early and mid nineties whose bedtime came well before the 11 p.m. SportsCenter, the top and bottom of the hour rundowns on the radio were the closest I got to a comprehensive overview of the day’s events.

When ESPN News and the ‘bottom line’ made its debut, it was like landing on the moon. Sure, most people were already aware of how their team was doing from the local TV or radio broadcasts, but for crazy people like me who needed to know how the A’s and Mariners were doing just as much as I needed info on my Phillies, this was an incredible leap.

And to think that those huge strides were made only about 15 years ago.

Fast forward to today, and those simple luxuries might as well be crude etchings on some cave wall that hasn’t seen sunlight in thousands of years.

To wait for one of my teams to pop up on the bottom line seems like an eternity, and you can forget about staying tuned to SportsCenter long enough for them to get to the actual highlights. Nowadays, a quick score update is seconds away if a computer or phone is within reach. Even big stories don’t require waiting around for the next day’s paper – or even the postgame write up online – as someone in the know will undoubtedly tweet the specifics of whatever developing story might arise.

For those of us who can’t get enough information and don’t mind reading through the occasional pointless filler stories in order to get to the minor injury news that could swing this week’s fantasy matchups or the minor negotiation snags that could become a major issue three years down the road, there is no doubting that this new age of information has been a godsend. In the last four or five years, I can’t recall more than a handful of times where I couldn’t have answers to my pressing questions within the span of a quick scan of the internet.

But as great as it is to be able to have stats, injury updates and in-game headlines at the tip of your finger, it’s nice to be able to take a step back in time every once in a while.

I got that thrill earlier this week when Georgia Southern took on Southern Conference rival (and routine ass-kicker of GSU) Davidson. Normally, I would have been the first person in the gym to see my team take on such a hated rival. I still have fond memories of the 2009 Davidson game where I almost managed to get myself thrown out of the arena despite being on the clock as a GSU employee during the game. Unfortunately, I wasn’t able to attend the game, and my job required that I miss most of the first half.

Leaning on my high-tech crutch, I was able to see that, somehow, by some sort of gross negligence on the part of the basketball gods, Georgia Southern had started out strong and taken a lead into halftime. On the way into the Statesboro Herald office to put the pages together, I was able to catch the halftime show on the radio, but nothing more.

Figuring that Georgia Southern would find a way to blow it, I went into the office and began piecing together the next day’s paper while keeping an eye on the game through the message board. Seeing that GSU had started the second half strong, I attempted to listen to the game through the online radio stream, only to encounter the problems that interfere with approximately 110% of the streaming of all GSU athletic events.

I sat at my desk for a few more minutes attempting to keep up with the game via intermittent updates on the message board, but the rabid fan in me quickly grew impatient.

With a little bit of time to kill and no viable high-tech options with which to keep track of the game, I was forced to kick it old-school.

I raced out to the parking lot and, with all the exuberance of a sports-crazed individual from the 90s or earlier, sat there in my car, burning gas, blaring the radio and punching the dashboard with every GSU bucket.

There is simply no substitute for the intensity of having the outcome of each play hanging on the breath of a play-by-play announcer.

As electrifying as every shot, steal, or any other facet of the game is for those in attendance, everything is amplified by tenfold when listening on the radio. Not only are nerves on edge because you can’t see exactly what is going on, but the reactions of the crowd that are caught on the microphone only exacerbate the joy or dread that you feel, since the emotion of the crowd on every play is hear before the actual call on the microphone.

Listening to my Eagles pull off the upset of Davidson while sitting in the parking lot of my office, I was brought back in time.

While I listened to all of the excitement as the Eagles pulled out a win, I was also pulled back in time to my first year living in Georgia. In those first few months, I reveled in my beloved Phillies being good for the first time in over a decade while clinging to the occasional nights where the radio signal from Philadelphia somehow made it over the Appalachian mountains. Every few nights, I got to tune in as my team made an improbable run. As the season wound down and the games grew more important, I used the first few solo driving experiences of my life – normally reserved for going on dates or getting away from parents’ oversight – to drive a dozen miles out of town to the top of a mountain so that I could get a clear signal and cheer on my team in what I’m sure was profoundly creepy solitude.

Creepy or not, there is no denying the intimacy of sitting in your car and hanging on the every breath of the radio broadcast of your favorite team. It may be a bit old-school, but there is nothing better than putting the car in park and staring in desperation at the radio console, waiting for the decisive moments of a game to trickle across the airwaves.

Sitting in my car last week, I might as well have been bundled beneath the sheets, tuning the radio low enough to keep my parents from barging in and demanding that I go to bed, yet still loud enough to keep track of my team.

As Georgia Southern took the lead in the game and wound down the final seconds for a victory, I can’t imagine that the inside of Hanner Fieldhouse was any more electric than the inside of my beat-up car, where I was kicking and screaming with every made free throw to ice the game away.

Nowadays, score updates, injury reports and every conceivable tidbit of information is only as far away as the nearest laptop or smart phone, but it’s good to know that a nostalgic experience is still just as far away as a trip to a car radio in a lonely parking lot. Trends and technology will continue to grind forward, but the raw emotion of being alone with nothing but your allegiance and a play-by-play announcement of your favorite teams is something that I hope will never die out.